


Cicada Lady

by Manya_Kami



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: And shockingly, Backstory, Character Study, F/M, Fruits basket spoilers, Headcanon-heavy, Healthy Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Second Person, Romance, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships, ren-centric, unhealthy thought processes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 17:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manya_Kami/pseuds/Manya_Kami
Summary: And the question is always, “Who gave you the right?”And the answer is always, always, “Akira.”





	Cicada Lady

**Author's Note:**

> The cicada spends all summer singing while the other insects gather food. 
> 
> When winter arrives, she finds herself without food, and she withers away while the other insects feast.

When you are young, your mother reads you fairy tales. 

The stories always seem to play out the same way. A peasant girl and a prince fall in love, and though the world may be against their coupling, they remain adverse. They get married at the end of the book. 

Sometimes, even, they have a child—a new little prince or princess, who ends up going on their own adventure—but you never like those stories quite as much. 

Your mother tells you that the lesson to be learned from these is that _“love conquers all.”_

You think that one day, you might like to experience that. 

  
❀

You are just barely brushing ankles with adulthood when you find yourself in the circle of maids dedicated to the household head, Sohma Akira. 

He’s beautiful, you realize. Easily the most enchanting person you’ve ever laid eyes on, and you know the Sohma family is full of beautiful people. 

Despite the fact that you are the one who will be serving him, it is he who takes the consideration to be the first one to bow. 

“Please take care of me.” He tells you, and you think, _I will._

  
❀

It doesn’t take long for you to learn of Akira’s fragile and failing health. 

You receive the news perhaps the cruelest way possible: through the gossiping and gammering of the other maids in Akira’s inner circle—the women who are supposed to respect, care for, and cater to the man. 

“He doesn’t have much time left,” they chitter in their close-knit nests. “and it’s going to be a real trouble if he can’t produce an heir.”

Someway, somehow, their harsh words hurt you—that they would dare speak so carelessly and callously about such a man. 

The next you see him, he is pale and pallid, and his veins show through his thin, delicate wrists. You wonder to yourself, as you clothe him in the morning, if those words might be what’s killing him all along. 

  
❀

Maybe Akira Sohma is like a fairy, you decide one day. 

Like a fairy in a bottle, magical and ethereal—but kept, always, at a distance. 

The connection is really quite childish, you think; maybe it’s some leftover imagination from all those fairy tales your mother read to you. But at the same time, you think as you watch him glitter like a shard of glass as he sits in the sunlight, maybe it’s painfully accurate. 

It brings you sorrow, to see him like this, unlikely and unloved, fluttering like a leaf. You think to yourself, _I would like to be the one to free the fairy from the bottle._

  
❀

You find yourself in his rooms more often. You volunteer for menial tasks, and the other maids mock and taunt you for it. 

“Who does she think she is?” They whisper when they think you’re too busy with yourself to overhear. “That Ren, always thinking she’s top dog.” 

The truth is, you’re not that selfish. The truth is, you’re only interested in spending more time with Akira. You hover and buzz about him if only because you hope he enjoys the company, and chit and chat about things that don’t matter. Most of the time, he won’t reply save for a noncommittal agreement. 

“The weather is lovely today. The sun is out, and all of the wisteria are in bloom.” You tell him as you flit around with fabric heavy in your hands. “They’re quite lovely.”

“I’m sure they are.” He replies, and it isn’t much, but he says it with a smile, and that’s enough. 

  
❀

_I love him, _you realize one day, and suddenly, everything is clear. 

You want to be with him; him, the one so alone, so petrified in his beauty and otherworldliness; him, who is treated as an alien by all else in the house. 

You’ve been witness to his small isolation, his tender fragility, when no one else has paid it any mind. It wasn’t fair to him, not at all—but now—but _now_—now _you_ are here. 

You want to be with him. If no one else, not one soul will love him, then you yourself will love him with the strength of ten thousand souls all your own. 

Overcome with the emotion and overflowing with fondness, that evening you kneel beside him and lean into him, and breathe gently into his ear, “I’ve seen you all this time.” It’s nearly enough to make you cry, and weep, like a child. “All this time… you’ve been lonely, haven’t you?”

❀ 

“That woman… that _Ren_!” These are the words the maids hiss and spit while you’re in earshot, hot and hate-fueled. “How _dare _she!”

They resent you, that lot. Resent you for your love for Akira, and for his love for you. They are burned by your pure and unadulterated romance, as though they are demons. 

They find it unacceptable, completely and wholly outrageous that the two of you might find love in each other. Like it’s just too much to even believe. 

You are hurt by their evil and sharp tongues. Those words that cut you like a whip, call you a whore and say you seduced the man—but when Akira wraps his arm around you in a full embrace and turns you away from the world, you are reminded of your mother’s fairy tales. 

  
❀

The tension in the household culminates one night, when you are on your way to Akira’s bedroom and without his protection. 

The news of your coupling has reached all the way to the head of household staff, and she is predictably the most unhappy of them all. 

She is an older woman with a dangerous authority about her, who gives you a glare like you are scum.

She shrieks, “I have raised Master Akira since he was a child! I taught him to be a sensible young man—and to think that he was seduced by a _demon!_”

It hurts, a bit. And yet at the same time, there is a sensation you get, as though there is an invisible wall between you and this woman. A barrier created by love. 

_That’s right,_ you reassure yourself. _Even despite all this, we still love each other._

But the maid isn’t done. “Well?! Have you no shame?!” Then, “Who gave you the _right_?!”

You say, “Akira.” And it’s true. 

  
❀

You are in Akira’s room. The windows are open, and with the way the moonlight cuts through his translucent figure, he truly does look like a fairy. 

You approach him, he embraces you in a kiss, and then pulls just the barest away. He keeps his hands in yours, and says, “Can I get you to sing tonight, Miss Cicada?”

You smile cunningly at him, playing a bit coy. You disrobe like a cicada sheds its shell, and you are a glimmering winged beauty underneath. 

Akira is less than shy. He touches you, runs his hands over your form, makes you gasp and call. 

He embraces you, and penetrates you, and you think, this must be the end of the fairy tale, because you are well and truly _happy_. 

  
✿

It is late in the summer of Akira’s death, and you are outside, watching the wisteria blooms as they wilt, and fall to the ground. 

The weather is unforgivingly hot and the air is baggy with humidity. It feels it may rain soon, but then you look to the hazy sun-bright sky backlighting the Sohma gardens, and you realize that the world will not join you as you weep the loss of your love. 

Something about that burns you, a little. 

You find a cicada’s carcass lying limply by your foot, and you briskly shove it aside. You hate summer. 

You’ve come to hate many things, as of late. 

Deep down, you wonder what has happened. What it is that changed in you. When it was that even love has become warped and ugly. 

_ “You were born to be loved...” _

That’s right… it was…

Like a deep, dark pit welling up in your lower gut. It’s all consuming, blackening. This passionate and overpowering hate that boils and broils within you. Something so dangerous, you feel like you are bending and breaking when this feeling rises in you. 

It hurts, it _hurts._

This love that has become so black, it’s taken you over completely. Akira’s love, deformed and misshapen, like a demon. 

That Akira’s love would ever be given to a _thing_ like _that_…

That _creature_… a monster in a human form. A monster, that fed off of your love for months… and when you had to squeeze it out of yourself, it was plumpened, and fat and ugly, because of your love. 

You can’t bear it. Can’t bear to look at it. That thing… that _evil_, _monstrous_ thing that has poisoned your love for Akira… and it’s turned you into a _demon._

On your way out of the gardens, you have the disdainful misfortune that you run into it, right here, right now. 

You want so badly to kill it. Just end its miserable life. You are reminded of the cicada carcass you’d come across, and suddenly you are filled with a sour regret that you didn’t squash the thing. 

It stares you dead in the eyes. So cool, so calculating. Not your son, and certainly not your daughter—it doesn’t even look like a child. Doesn’t even look _human_. 

You grimace as it glares. You think you may be sick. It truly is a monster in human form. 

_“You were born to be loved, Akito.”_

That Akira would fall in love… with a _monster_… 

You feel white hot fury overtake you. You are livid, a charged and angry spirit, poised to strike. You cannot kill it with your hands—the households hands will not allow such a thing—but you can kill it with words, you think. 

“You disdainful, rotten child!” You shriek like a banshee. It rubs your throat raw, this screaming. You will have to nurse it with tea and milk later, but right now, you need to scream, and shout, and let your hate ring out. “Who gave you the _right_?! ”

To be here. To be loved. To be loved by Akira. 

_”You were born to be—“_

The child flinches just once, then faces you with resolve, and tells you, “Father.”

.


End file.
